Blåtinden, May 7 2017

A nice peak with mighty fine views!

Sunday morning and roll call at 6:30am. Slightly tired after the 19km ski-trip to Torvløysa with Petter Bjørstad the day before. Or was it the late evening with a nice meal and good wine with Anne, Anne May and Petter? Perhaps a combination.

In any case, Petter had to make his afternoon flight to Bergen, and he wanted to pay Blåtinden a visit before leaving. I had been to Blåtinden once before (Oct 2009) but figured that a revisit would be nice.

Blåtinden

We headed out from Ørsta Skisenter (approx. 300m) 8am sharp. We walked up the hill with sneakers, carrying the skis and boots on our backpacks. It was nowhere as hot as the day before and there was a slight wind chill.

Heading out…

At approx. 630m, near the top of the first trek, we could put the skis on. The snow was hard, and I hoped that the steep section up to the ridge would have a bit softer snow. In any case, I didn’t consider skiing up that section, so crampons and ice-axe were in and on the backpack.

Time for skiing!

When we got to the steep section (steep – as in – there can be avalanche hazard here), the snow was – as I had anticipated – too hard for skiing. Although the snow was softer beneath the icy crust, we chose to put crampons on. We also carried our skis up this section, hoping for better snow on the ridge.

Petter, on his way up the steep slope

The snow was hard on the ridge so Petter left his skis behind. I carried mine to the top, and could at least ski the last couple of hundred meters to the summit.

Petter, approaching the top – on foot.

The views from this top are awesome, and I will let the summit panoramas speak for themselves:

After a short stay on top, we headed back down. I only skied for a short stretch before I got tired of the hard snow and put the skis on the backpack.

Descending Blåtinden

It wasn’t until we had passed the steep section that skiing got fun. Too bad it didn’t last longer than down to Lake Storevatnet.

Great snow for skiing here!

We returned to the trailhead 12:30pm, and was back home one hour later – in time to say goodbye to Anne and Anne May, leaving for Sogndal. I drove Petter to the 3:25pm express boat from Hareid and returned home wondering if I should relax or take Karma (my dog) to one of the local mountains. I ended up with the first option. Probably a wise decision. I felt a bit tired after an intense weekend.